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If You're Going To Supplement Calcium, Do So with a 1:1 Ratio with Magnesium

Generally, I don't recommend supplementation with calcium.

Calcium can easily be obtained through a healthy diet.

This is true regardless of whether the person is an omnivore, vegetarian, or vegan.

However, if you're going to supplement calcium, then you should take magnesium preferably in a 1:1 ratio with the calcium.

Magnesium is very important when supplementing calcium because it is needed for calcium to be properly absorbed and used.

If the calcium taken in is much greater, this can cause health problems because in order for the body to absorb and use calcium adequately, it needs magnesium to do so. Without magnesium, calcium will end up unused and accumulate in the body.

Calcium-Magnesium Ratio in Fruits and Vegetables

When we eat natural healthy food, this is the ratio normally present in food.

What is the healthiest food for human beings? The answer is fruits and vegetables.

Let's look at some examples to see these ratios.

A small papaya contains around 31-34mg of calcium and 30-33mg of magnesium.

A cup of blueberries contains approximately 9mg of calcium and 9mg of magnesium.

A medium tomato has 12-15mg of calcium and 12-15mg of magnesium.

A medium banana has 6mg of calcium and 32mg of magnesium. That's over 5 times as much magnesium as calcium.

A medium cantaloupe has about 50mg of calcium and 66mg of magnesium.

An avocado has about 18-24mg of calcium and 39-58mg of magnesium.

Lettuce (100g) has approximately 33mg of calcium and 14mg of magnesium. This makes lettuce one of the few foods with at least double the calcium levels as the magnesium.

Celery (100g serving) contains approximately 40mg of calcium and 11mg of magnesium.

One large raw cucumber contains about 48mg of calcium and 39mg of magnesium.

So you can see that calcium and magnesium normally keep an approximate 1 to 1 ratio with fruits, with sometimes significantly more magnesium in the case of bananas, for example; however, none exceeds more than 6 times the amount.

In the case of vegetables, there tends to be more calcium than magnesium, but none exceeds more than 4 times the amount.

So, mostly, there tends to be a 1 to 1 ratio of calcium and magnesium in fruits and vegetables, with minor variations but none exceeding more than 6 times the amounts.

Calcium-Magnesium Ratios Eaten Today By Average Person

Compare this with the average diet today which has a 10:1 ratio of calcium to magnesium, while natural foods, as just shown like fruits and vegetables tend to have a 1:1 ratio, more or less, with minor variances.

Milk, touted as a great source of calcium, gives us a 7:1 ratio of calcium to magnesium. Yogurt gives us a 11:1 ratio. Calcium-fortified orange juice gives a 27:1 ratio. Antacids give a 100:1 ratio.

On top of this, many people, already with a diet high in calcium in comparison with magnesium, take calcium supplements, ingesting even more calcium than they do magnesium.

The Problem with Excess Calcium In Relation to Magnesium

The problem with this, again, is that calcium needs magnesium in order to be used and absorbed by the body. When you eat a diet much higher in calcium than you do in magnesium, this causes a lot of the calcium ingested to end up being unused. This unused calcium to form harmful things, such as kidney stones, atherosclerotic plaque, and calcifications in many areas of the body.

This is how supplementation with calcium can end up being dangerous if not taken in combination with the necessary other nutrients.

Excess calcium coupled with low magnesium exacerbates calcification in the body.

A person with a toxic buildup of calcium in the body may have to take twice as much magnesium as calcium to undo damage from calcium buildup, drug intake, stress, and consequent inflammation in the body.

Therefore, too much calcium in the body means that much of the magnesium that is ingested has to neutralize that excess before doing its work in teh body.

It is stated that more than 40% of the US population (with 70% of older women) take calcium supplements. Less than half of that calcium is absorbed in the gut; he rest is either excreted through the large intestine, causing constipation, or through the kidneys, potentially forming kidney stones. Or it is transported to other soft tissues, where it can harden (calcify) into gallstones, heel spurs, atherosclerotic plaques, fibromyalgic calcifications, and breast tissue calcifications.

Therefore, taking in excess calcium by taking supplements is a great risk and can cause many health problems, including constipation, kidney stones, plaque buildup in blood vessels, and calcifications in various parts of the body.

Since calcium can easily be obtained through a healthy, natural diet, it makes more sense to do it this way. But if you have to supplement it, aim for a 1:1 ratio with magnesium to allow for proper absorption and decrease the risk of having too much unused, accumulated calcium in the body.

By David Hylton, FNP-C

February 21, 2026